A man's gotta eat
by Joshua the Terminian
Summary: Maggie's life has been nothing but a roaler-coaster since the start of the apocalypse. Now she seems to have found something to hold on. Contains violence, swearing and cannibalism.


**A** **man's gotta eat**

 **This is an other (much darker) Gareth/Maggie story! Yay! Please review!**

Maggie sat watching the campfire and waiting for dinner to be cooked. Beth was huddled next to her. She hasn't seen her little sister in a very long time.

Since the farm. _Maggie got separated from the others back then, but found soon the signs to a sanctuary called Terminus. She came to the place in hope of her family to once come across the signs._

 _In Terminus she met Gareth. He was young, handsome, kind and funny guy, so there was no wonder that the two fell for each other and started to soon share a bed._

 _Things seemed good. Maggie had friends and in a way a new family. Gareth's mother Mary was a good, religious woman. Just like her own father._

 _But things went south soon. After the first winter, which wasn't a nice experience, new people arrived. There was about a dozen if them. They seemed like nice people in the beginning, but before Gareth, Maggie and the others noticed it they were locked up in a train-cart._

 _Soon Maggie found out what the men wanted from them._

 _It was after being locked up for about six or seven hours. Maggie was sleeping in Gareth's lap when the strangers came in. She woke up being dragged by the men out, kicking and screaming. Gareth tried to help her but the men knocked him out._

 _Maggie was thrown in one of the bedrooms at Terminus where the leader of those men, Nate, was expecting her. Before Maggie could do anything, Nate pushed her violently on the bed and… raped her. Maggie screamed and begged for mercy, for him to stop, but it seemed that Nate liked it more when she pleaded. He was turned on by it._

 _Maggie was thrown back in the train-cart like an piece of garbage and an other woman, Cynthia, was taken._

 _Maggie's face was covered in tears and dirt and she was bleeding from between her legs. Her once beautiful skin was covered in bruises and clawing-scars._

 _Gareth took her in his lap and tried to calm, kissing her forehead and whispering things like "you're safe now" or "it's okay". They calmed Maggie down for a second but didn't help much when she was taken again._

 _Maggie, Mary, Cynthia and Kaylee were raped for weeks, while Gareth and his brother, Alex, where forced to listen and sometimes even watch._

" _You're either the butcher or the cattle" whispered Gareth once to the others. It was his ideology that he had gotten over the horrors. It was either them or the occupiers._

 _Soon Gareth and the others got free and his new ideology was used. The people of Terminus were starving and the almost all food-supplies, so they had to resort on the most extreme way of survival. Cannibalism. Maggie was disgusted by the idea, but after being hungry for weeks and getting a plate of cooked meat got over her moral compass._

 _They ate the occupiers, except for Nate, and started to give the newcomers a choice. They would either join them or feed them._

 _And it worked for almost nine months. In these nine months Gareth and Maggie got married, Terminus was rebuilt and a system was created._

 _Until Glenn came to Terminus. Maggie was surprised that he was still alive and got to hear from him the status of the rest of the family. Her father was decapitated by a man called the Governor and her sister was missing. They had lived with Rick and his people in a prison. Lori had given birth to baby-girl named Judith and things were good. Until the Governor attacked. The first attack was stopped by Rick and his people, but the second attack destroyed the prison. They were all separated._

 _Glenn wasn't alone. He was with two others form Rick's group, Sasha and Bob, and with two sisters Tara and Lilly. The others were Abraham Ford, Rosita Espinosa and Eugene Porter, who believed that Eugene was the key to solving the problem with the walkers._

 _But Glenn did not accept the terms of cannibalism and he and his merry crew were thrown in train-cart A. Maggie came saw her fathers watch among Glenn's possessions and wanted to give it to Gareth, but Alex took it first._

 _One day later Rick arrived. He did was with Carl, Daryl and some woman named Michonne. They came to Terminus through the back-door and noticed something was off. They were able to get Alex killed and tried to run, but ended still up in train-cart A._

 _Maggie was fine with it. Rick's people, she never truly liked them. Maybe Glenn, but that was in the past. He had hurt her feelings by telling that loving her would get him distracted. Her family was also gone._

 _But then Terminus fell. One of the propane-tanks blew up and walkers got in. Maggie searched for Gareth and found him injured on one of the roof-tops. Rick had shot him apparently._

 _Maggie and her husband were able to escape the bruning compound and ran to a cabin were they termites would regroup in case of a disaster. Only a few were there: Mike, Albert, Greg, Theresa and Martin. Only seven had made it out. Seven out of sixty. Mary, Cynthia, Kaylee, Chuck and so many others died._

 _Martin mentioned that a woman and a man ambushed him in the woods and took his riffle and fireworks that he wanted to use to confuse the heard that was heading to Terminus._

 _Maggie was on the road again._

 _Gareth and the six other hunters tried to track down Rick and his people, but with no success. They decided to lay down in a house of a small neighborhood they came across. They started to grow crops in the gardens and hunted both animals and other survivors._

 _When it started to go to autumn, they came across Beth. She had escaped a hospital were she was held by some crazy police-officers. But she was followed by a guy called Gorman. The hunters overpowered him and Martin and Greg went on preparing the guy for food._

 _Maggie had a tearful reunion with Beth. Maggie also explained to Beth about what they were going to do to Gorman, meaning eating him. Beth surprisingly quickly accepted the terms and was now officially a member of the hunetrs._

 **Now:**

Beth and Maggie, huddled together looked at Gorman's cut of leg that was roasting on the fire. Theresa had done it using Michonne's katana.

"Almost done" mumbled Maggie at the meat.

"How did ya start this?" asked Beth. "Eating folk?"

"It's a long story, Beth, but we didn't want to do this"

"I believe ya, but Gareth and the others are creepy" mumbled Beth.

"Gareth's a good guy, he just has been a lot of shit. So have Tessa, Al and Mike. Greg and Martin are creepy sometimes, but you get used to them"

"Yeah, but does…he force ya?" asked Beth now.

"No" replied Maggie. Gareth had never been anything like Nate. He was always gentle and gave her all the time in the world after the occupation.

"He just… this is so weird. I mean daddy wouldn't want us to do it, but… we I get it why we need to do it"

"Gareth's little brother once said that a man's gotta eat" said Maggie.

"Or a woman" replied Beth, trying to giggle a little.

"Yeah"

Martin and Albert joined them getting something to eat. He came with a few paper-plates and used a knife to cut meat down from the fried leg.

"Looks good. Sad that it wasn' a lady" mumbled Martin. "They taste better"

"Do they?" wondered Beth.

"Yeah, it's a extra layer of fat that women have for baby's" Maggie said. She used study to become a pediatrician.

"Hmm. At the hospital were several female cops. Their leader was a woman called Dawn" said Beth.

"Sounds tasty" said Albert. The young man had apparently devoted a crush on Beth. He was the youngest to survive the occupation of Terminus and hasn't had time for any kind of women-matters. With Beth being here things seem to have changed.

The rest of them came also. Gorman, who was tied to a post, started to regain consciousness.

"You're waking up" said Gareth.

"What the fuck?" gasped the police officer, seeing the leg roasting. "You fucking group of cannibals!"

"Shh. Calm down! I want to explain myself a little. You see, we did not want to do this. Not to you, not to anyone. But these are hard times, we gotta make nasty things to survive, even fucked up things. Trust me, I don't take any joy out of this, unlike you did when you raped those female wards. Yes, Beth mentioned what you and your buddies did back there. You tried to do it also to her. Well, seems like this got a little personal, since nobody fucks with my family and gets away with it. Sorry for my harsh tone, didn't mean it" Gareth continued. "You see that no matter how much we hate this fucking ugly business, you need to understand that **a man's gotta eat** "

Gorman passed out at that line and Gareth and the others started eating.

"This tastes pretty…alirght" said Beth after her first bite.

"You should take some BBQ-sauce. It makes it taste much better" said Maggie.

Maggie looed around at the people that were eating alongside her. They were, as fucked up as it may sound, her family. Gareth and Beth were clearly her, but the five others, she had gotten used to them. And together they would be able to deal with anything that this brutal world would put against them.

A group men and women gotta eat.

 **Loppu**

 **Hopefully you liked it! For possible Gleggie-lovers, Maggie and Glenn weren't anything serious in this fic. They had the thing at the pharmacy and Maggie told Glenn that she loved him, but after the shoot-out at the bar he told her that he couldn't risk it. That's when pizza-boys train left. And it headed to Terminus(quite literally).**

 **Also Beth lives! I'm not a Beth-fan, but neither a Beth-hater. I think Albert is gonna have her real soon! Please put your opinion in the comments. Also why do so many people ship Gareth and Beth? They characters never met or had anything in common. I like to ship Maggie/Gareth since they are my favorite characters.**


End file.
